


Forged

by sv_you_know_who_I_am



Series: A Court of War and Starlight One-Shots [13]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, NSFW, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:14:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7489398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sv_you_know_who_I_am/pseuds/sv_you_know_who_I_am
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nesta and Cassian have been fighting the war on different fronts and have just been reunited in a sanctuary for fae and humans alike. Faces from Nesta’s past make her want to confront her future, leading her to make a decision from which she cannot turn back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forged

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a companion to "A Court of War and Starlight." The first part addresses plot points from the fic, but the rest is pure Nessian angst and sin.

 

Nesta was tired. The exhaustion was so deep in her bones that she didn’t think any amount of sleep would be enough to rid her of it.

She was so stupid. How could she let Hybern just take the Cauldron like that?

She sat in a chair at the edge of the wooden hall in the giant ironwood tree, the place her mother had apparently called sanctuary for fourteen years. She hid her face in her hand and massaged her temples with her thumb and forefinger, listening to the faint clatter of sand granules as they peeled off her skin and fell onto the table. She put all her focus there, because she did not have the energy or strength to pay attention to the reunion occurring at the other end of the room. Her mother, who had been taken from her and had never tried to return; and her father, who had never tried to save her and who had failed them beyond Nesta’s ability to forgive him. It didn’t matter that he was here now. It was too late.

Too damned late.

A shadow fell over her along with the scent of smoke and roasting meat, and soon Cassian’s large hands were gathering her filthy hair away from her neck. Her heart thudded at his touch, at the surge of feeling it stirred within her.

She had missed him. Nesta had never missed anyone like this before.

Perhaps Feyre, when she’d left, but that had been out of obligation as much as actual feeling. Cassian . . . how was it she could miss his touch so badly? It had been . . . Nesta’s skill with number failed her, but she knew it had been at least a week. And she had missed him the whole time. After the battle in the Summer Court, she’d wanted to talk to him, to understand what had happened to her and to celebrate her freedom from the Cauldron. When she’d been left alone by Amren in the Spring Court, Nesta had wanted Cassian there to help her as she’d taken it upon herself to steal a horse and travel along the wall, using the Cauldron to seal up every hole she came across until she’d reached the port city on the Spring Court’s west coast, starving and half-wild and too late to save her sisters. She’d wanted Cassian there as she’d set foot on a ship for the first time, sailing with the High Lord of Summer after Hybern’s fleet to rescue Feyre and Elain and Lucien.

She’d just wanted him.

She wasn’t sure she had the nerve to tell him that. She wasn’t sure she had the words to tell him that she had been afraid for him when she’d thought about him fighting in Velaris. He’d said goodbye to her, of course. Properly. But even the memory of him within her wasn’t enough to keep her from fearing for him, and missing him, and . . .

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” he rumbled. He placed his hand at her back as she stood and he gently guided her across the room, placing his body between hers and her parents’.

They’d almost made it to the corridor when a voice rang out, “Nesta? Nesta Archeron?”

Nesta went stiff as she heard a voice that she hadn’t thought about in months. Hadn’t wanted to. She peered around Cassian’s huge form, and her lips pulled back in a snarl as she spied Tomas Mandray standing just behind her father with a cluster of other human men that she did not know. Cassian inhaled and from her scent and her reaction he instantly understood, and she felt him go as still as a predator about to pounce. “Tomas,” she said in a chilled voice as she stepped around Cassian to view him fully--though she never stepped out of the commander’s immediate presence.

“What on earth happened to you?” Tomas asked.

Nesta didn’t answer. “Father, I’m surprised you didn’t think it appropriate to mention that my former fiance came along with you.”

Her father cleared his throat. “Some of the young men from the village volunteered when my ships were recruited for war.”

“I didn’t volunteer,” Tomas corrected, and Nesta wondered how she had ever felt the need to engage herself to such a small man. “I was drafted. And now I’m here among disgusting fae, pretending as though they never hurt us.”

“No one is asking you to pretend,” Nesta said, taking several steps toward Tomas. “Though if you keep ranting like an idiot, you might just invite more hurt.”

“Nesta,” her father said, sounding shocked at her behavior. “Your mother is standing here. Do her the honor of acting like a lady when you speak to a gentleman.”

Nesta’s throat tightened so fast in revulsion that she actually gagged. “Tomas Mandray is no gentleman,” she said, her voice low. “And my mother’s opinion means nothing to me.”

“He would have offered you a good life, Nesta,” her father said.

“He would have _raped_ me!” Nesta shrieked, her control breaking. Bits of lightning zapped at her fingertips, the last remnants she had. Her father looked like she had slapped him, and Tomas’s defiant look melted away as Cassian drew up behind Nesta in an instant, snarling like the wild thing he was. His wings were spread and flared, the talons at the ends gleaming in the firelight. And his Siphons glowed.

“Please let me kill him, Nesta,” Cassian growled, his eyes focused on Tomas like he was a rodent and Cassian was a hawk ready to catch his prey. She remembered his promise the day in the manor in the human realm, the first day she’d known he was her mate.

She and Cassian both had gone preternaturally still as Tomas and her father both quaked before them. For a moment, she considered letting Cassian take Tomas by the throat and drop him into the canyon outside. And then break him a little more.

But she was tired.

“He’s not worth it,” she finally said. Cassian’s eyes flicked between her and Tomas for a moment before he let his wings drop and the snarl clear from his face. But he wrapped his hand around her waist, looking over everyone in that room and _claiming_ her. Promising them all that if they ever hurt her again, he would take personal pleasure in ending them. Very slowly.

“I told you that you had the Mother’s Blessing too, Nesta,” her mother said, looking at her daughter and Cassian without a trace of fear, but rather satisfaction.

“Don’t talk to me,” Nesta said. And with that she turned and walked out of the hall, Cassian at her back every step of the way.

-

It took the entire walk to the chamber Tomer had given them for Cassian to feel remotely rational again. Seeing that slimey, pathetic excuse for a man--the one who had tried to hurt Nesta, the most beautiful thing in his world . . .

Nesta shut the door and locked it, then walked over to him and laid a delicate hand on his cheek. That one touch leached away the rage within him and a wave of something else overtook him. He snatched her into his arms and crushed her against him, breathing in her scent deep. He could almost smell everything she’d been through since they’d been apart lingering on her skin, and he hated himself for not being there with her the whole time. He knew he had been where he needed to be, but he’d _wanted_ to be with her . . .

“Cassian,” she said, the word holding so much more than the simple syllables of his name. “I’m all right.”

“Why didn’t you let me kill him?” Cassian choked, not releasing her.

“Because he doesn’t matter,” Nesta replied, her voice even. “To die at your hands would have been too much an honor for him.”

He shuddered as a reluctant laugh escaped his mouth. “It would have been too easy, anyway.”

“One punch would have done it,” Nesta agreed, her fingers combing through his hair.

Cassian pressed his lips to hers. “Would it upset you if I told you I wanted to kill your father, too?”

Nesta didn’t reply for a moment, though she continued running her fingers through his hair. “No, it wouldn’t,” she said, “because I wish I never had to look at his face again.”

“I can arrange that,” Cassian said sincerely, pulling away to lock eyes with Nesta.

She smirked. “Still not worth it. The King of Hybern, however . . .” Cassian’s hands tightened around her and he growled. Nesta’s eyes became hard. “I want to kill him myself. But if for some reason I can’t, you can do it for me.”

Cassian’s lips parted as he realized how much it meant for her to say that. The desire to kill the King of Hybern . . . that had been one of her biggest motivations for the past two months. To concede that she might let him do it if she couldn’t . . . she was honoring him with that. “I missed you,” he said roughly, brushing his nose along her jaw. Unable to contain himself, he kissed her deeply, lifting her off the floor again so his tongue could dip into her mouth, tasting her, caressing her. His blood lit on fire as she raised her legs to latch around his waist, clinging tightly to him as he kissed her.

Two strides had Nesta against the wall, a gasp whooshing out of her even as she continued to kiss him. Her hands grappled at his buckles, the fastening of his armor, and she tore it off piece by piece until it was in piles on the floor beside them. And she never once stopped kissing him. A growl rumbled low in his throat as he dragged her lip between his teeth and he pinned her to the wall with his body weight. His hands rose to tear her tunic off her shoulders, feeling the fabric split under his hands but not caring one bit as her beautiful skin was bared to him, covered in sand and dirt and sweat and . . .

Blood.

Cassian’s kissing stilled as his eyes focused with predatory precision on the three long cuts on Nesta’s shoulder, stretching from her right breast over her arm. The cuts were already healing, but they’d been deep, and the blood was still staining her porcelain skin. “What did that to you?” he asked in a low voice.

Nesta blinked away the lust in her eyes and followed his gaze to her arm. “One of Hybern’s soldiers, when they took Feyre and me.”

Cassian’s throat went dry and he slowly lowered her to the ground. “Let’s get that cleaned up.”

“It’s fine,” Nesta said, reaching up to kiss him again.

“No. It’s not.” He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, swollen from kissing, before taking her by the wrist to the waterfall-fed bathing room just outside. He sat her down on a stone bench and carefully removed the rest of her tunic--not in a frantic way as he had been moments before, but slowly, not wanting to risk agitating injuries he hadn’t known existed. He was relieved that he found nothing more than faint bruises on the rest of her, and also relieved that she didn’t protest and fight him about this. He hadn’t been there to protect her, but he could help her now.

Cassian stood behind her and dampened a clean cloth in the waterfall, dabbing at the scars at her shoulder gently. She hissed as he touched the more painful part, and he grimaced. The water ran off of her, stained reddish brown as the blood washed away, leaving the scars looking far less vicious than they had moments before. Cassian knew they’d be gone by morning. But to see them now, to see the woman he loved hurt like that . . .

He stepped away from her and said tightly, “You can shower off first.” He moved to step back into the bedroom, but she caught his hand in hers.

“What if I need help?” she asked.

Cassian raised his eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, but Nesta said nothing. Instead, she just rose to her feet and stepped up close to him, releasing his hand so that she could undo the buckles at his belt. He let out a ragged breath and caught her wrists in his hands. “You’re injured,” he ground out.

“Not that badly,” Nesta protested, sounding a little breathless herself. “Please, Cassian.”

Those two words--the only ones she ever needed to utter to get him to go whatever she pleased. He groaned as she kissed his chest, sliding her hand down his waist to tug at his waistband. She lowered herself down as she worked his pants down his powerful thighs, and he heard her sharp intake of breath when she released his hardened length. He scented her--she wanted him. And he wanted her.

Still, even he wasn’t prepared for Nesta to lean forward and wrap her mouth around him.

He cursed violently and his hands buried themselves in her hair as he threw his head back, swearing and gasping for breath in equal measure. He dared looked down at her and saw her lovely eyelids flutter shut as she sucked on him, her hand stroking whatever she couldn’t fit in her mouth. “ _Nesta_ ,” he growled as she continued working him.

He snarled. No, he wouldn’t let himself go like this. Not when there was so much of her that he wanted to touch, taste, kiss. He pulled out of her mouth and grabbed her by the uninjured arm to drag her back onto her feet, and he kissed her wildly, one hand tangled in her hair while the other struggled to pull her trousers off of her. She helped wriggle out of them, and once they’d both kicked their clothing off to who-knows-where, he backed her into the plunging stream of the waterfall, soaking them both from head to toe.

The roaring water blocked out everything else. Every thought, every fear, leaving nothing at all but the feeling of her lips on his skin and his hands on her body. And he wasn’t the bastard-born Illyrian commander for once in his life. He was just Cassian. She wasn’t the Made wielder of the Cauldron or the burdened eldest daughter of a merchant. She was just Nesta. And together beneath the waterfall it was just the two of them. And they were all that mattered.

-

Nesta wasn’t sure what had come over her when she’d decided to kiss him there, to take him deep in her mouth and caress him with her tongue, but by the amount of swearing she could tell that he liked it. And she did, too. It made her feel . . . powerful. But not in a magic way, or in a way that felt like a burden more than freedom. This was a power she’d always possessed but never used . . . she hadn’t even been interested in discovering it until Cassian. She was glad of it. When she thought about the fact that she had almost been married to Tomas Mandray, and might have done this to him . . .

Those thoughts flew right out of her mind as Cassian groaned again as she continued pleasuring him. This--she could happily do this for a long while, knowing that she was making him feel _good_. People rarely came aware from encounters with Nesta happy, but Cassian looked at her like just being near her made him the happiest person on the planet. That was a gift she had never known she’d wanted.

She was almost disappointed when Cassian pulled away from her, but when he dragged her up to kiss her she realized that any contact with Cassian was good. The coarseness of his tongue against hers, the rough stubble of his facial hair . . . it all lit her ablaze, and it was all she could think of as he helped her get her trousers off and pushed them both beneath the waterfall.

She let out a little shriek as the water thundered over her head, but then she laughed--her true laugh--as he buried his face in her neck and ran his hands all over her body, caressing her even as he helped clear the grime from her body. “Nesta,” he growled against her skin. She wondered how she could hear him over the water. “Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?” His mouth dipped down and licked her breasts and the water that was running over him.

“Some,” she gasped in return, feeling the drumbeat beginning between her legs.

Cassian gripped her by the waist and spun her around. If not for his secure hold she might have slipped on the wet stone. He pressed her tight against him and she could feel his erection at the small of her back. He nibbled at the tip of her pointed ear while he kneaded her breasts. “I want to take you from behind,” he said, writhing against her. “I want to fill you until you’re bursting. I want you screaming my name, Nesta.”

Nesta gritted her teeth, her desire winding her tight. “Take it away, commander.”

Cassian jerked her out from the waterfall so they were in the damp pocket between the water and the stone wall. He pushed her up against the wall roughly, though not so hard as to hurt her. His hands held her hips and spread her wide, and she let out a loud moan as he entered her, lighting the flame that had been small within her for days now, reminding her of the decision she’d made and the promises they’d spoken to each other.

He was so much taller than her that he had to lift her by the back of her thighs and pin her to the wall as he moved in her. Her foot found a ledge to brace on, and she raised her other leg to give him clearer access to her. She pressed her face against the slick, smooth stone, eyes closed as she could focus only on the size of him inside her. She remembered how she’d been afraid of it at first, but she had been so wrong. Cassian . . . he could take care of her. He knew how to handle her, just as she knew how to handle him.

She gasped and groaned with every thrust he made inside her. “Cassian,” she moaned.

“Louder, sweetheart,” he growled as he thrust in again, striking her deep.

“Cassian!” she cried as the one hand not supporting her snaked between her body and the wall and began to rub quick circles at the bundle of nerves above where they were joined. She let out a long, wild groan, high in pitch, as she neared the tipping point at the touch of his fingers.

His tongue licked up the side of her neck. “I still can’t hear you.”

He pressed down and thrust in, and Nesta screamed, somehow managing to make it sound like his name as she fractured around him, shuddering and panting for breath as he came inside her at the same moment. Faint whimpers kept breaking from her lips as he pulled out and lowered her to the ground. He stroked her face and neck with one hand while the other banded around her torso. “That’s right, Nesta,” he said. “Incredible as always.”

She laughed and licked her lips, twisting in his arms to bury her face in his chest. “That was not at all what I expected,” she confessed, smiling against him.

“I’m full of surprises,” Cassian said, tilting her chin up so she could look into his intense hazel eyes. “So are you, apparently.” She knew what he was thinking of, and she blushed. “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice rough. “Cauldron, you are so beautiful.”

“That reminds me,” she murmured. She took him by the hand and led him out from behind the waterfall and into their room, where she passed him a towel and began to dry herself off as well. She was amazed at how the tension in her shoulders had released in the aftermath of their activity. She wasn’t sure it would make her any less nervous about what she was about to do.

Cassian shook out his wings and splashed her, and she flipped him off even as she giggled and dried herself again. She slipped on a robe she found near the dresser--lightweight and not good for concealing much--and walked over to where he had seated himself cross-legged on the bed. She faced him in the same position. “I’m free from the Cauldron,” she said casually, as though it weren’t the greatest relief in her life. She took her hand in his and traced lines on his palm and along his fingers.

“I can tell,” Cassian said. “How do you feel?”

“Free,” she said in a small voice and without hesitation. “I feel free.” And she wondered if he would remember the words she’d spoken to him on the mountain, when they’d first faced what they were to each other. _Once I’m free_.

From the look that darted across Cassian’s face, it was clear he did remember.

“The only thing I knew about a mate bond growing up was that I was destined to have one, and that this was not a good thing,” Nesta said carefully. “Being mated meant that I would be chained to someone, even if that person wasn’t able to love me the way I loved them. That I would be forced to make sacrifices for them that they could never return. It was an unequal thing.” She swallowed and wetted her lips, focusing only on the patterns she was tracing on his hands. She couldn’t look him in the eyes. Not yet. “But then I saw Feyre and Rhysand. How they were a perfect match--not perfect people, but equally yoked. Willing to die for each other. Kill for each other. Sacrifice for each other. Then I saw Elain, and how she absolutely bloomed around Lucien, fell in love with him so quickly and so completely that now I look at them and wonder how she ever seemed right apart from him. And I saw the lengths he went to in order to save her.

“And,” she continued as she sensed Cassian about to interrupt, “I realized how good it felt to have someone in my life who was willing to share my burden and who wouldn’t quake beneath it. Who could see me, and whom I could trust. I thought it would be enough to have that, to have you, without the mating bond.

“Then you were apart from me, and I didn’t have that line to you. No way to know if you were living or dead or injured . . . and I envied my sisters. That they had that. And I realized that if I envied them so badly . . . perhaps I had changed my mind about not wanting it.”

“Nesta,” Cassian finally cut in, prompting her to raise her eyes to his at last. She almost melted at the well of emotion in them. He gripped her hands until her fingers ached, but she didn’t dare pull away. “You said after the War. Don’t . . . don’t change your mind because you feel like you have to.”

“I know I don’t have to,” she assured him. “I’ll admit that if things were different, if it weren’t for this war, maybe I’d still wait. But I think it’s a good thing that I feel this way now. I’ve always been the one to sit and wait and see. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to take a chance. And there’s no one else I’d rather take that chance with.” She sucked in her breath, biting back the most vulnerable words still. She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small date pastry she’d seen lying among a plate of food on top of the dresser. Cassian’s eyes widened when he saw it and Nesta feared he’d stopped breathing. “I wish I could be a little more formal about it,” she said, her voice shaking. “But I mean this, Cassian. I want this, with you.”

Cassian cupped her hand in both of his, eyes wide and nostrils flared. “Nesta . . .” he breathed.

“Cassian, I love you,” Nesta choked out. “Please, eat it.”

Tears glistened in Cassian’s eyes and he lifted the pastry out of her palm with shaking fingers. He lifted it to his mouth and Nesta watched as he bit down and chewed, his eyes locked on hers the whole time.

The pastry was small enough that Cassian finished it in two bites, and Nesta stared at his mouth as the licked the crumbs away from his lips. Then he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed every one of her fingertips before leaning in and hovering his lips over her mouth. “I love you too, sweetheart.” And he kissed her.

The promise that had flowed steady between them for months now went suddenly taut between them and Nesta gasped, her eyes wide, as she felt it latch onto each other them and bind them, warm and deep and powerful as a storm. Her eyes were bright with it, and it was a feeling so glorious she wondered why she had waited so long, run from it for so long.

Cassian kissed her harder, but Nesta rose onto her knees and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, kissing him with everything she had, using that fresh-forged bond to share every last inch of her with him, just as he poured every part of him into her as well. They were fused, body and soul, and Nesta was bathed in the power she’d felt earlier. It washed away every last fear and worry and doubt, leaving her nothing but her mate in her arms, this glorious and powerful male who had _seen_ her and told her that he was not afraid, and that he loved her.

Nesta pushed against Cassian until he was on his back beneath her, arms wrapped around her as she kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. And as they laid in the bed making love to each other, long and passionate, she felt them both being cleansed and washed anew by the bond they had forged, fierce and fast as lightning.


End file.
